R E S E A R C H
Open Access
Bourdieu and programming classes for the
disadvantaged: a review of current practice
as reported online
—
implications for
non-formal coding classes in Bali
Laurence Tamatea
*and Gusti Agung Ayu Mas Pramitasari
* Correspondence:Laurence. [email protected]
School of Education, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, Australia
Abstract
The software development sector is rapidly expanding. It generates vast revenues whether categorised under ICT or creative industries. It has a capacity to support national economic growth and is supportive of economic development. Despite such opportunity, the poor and disadvantaged are often excluded from access to and participation in this sector. In light of this context, our paper comprises a first step in a project aiming to offer software development classes to disadvantaged youth in Bali, Indonesia. To guide construction of the curriculum, we review publically available online literature around current practice in the provision of non-formal education-based programming classes to the disadvantaged. We wanted to know what might constrain disadvantaged students from participation in this field, what as a consequence might be their response to educational opportunities for this field, and what might be needed to provide‘agentic’learning experiences. We also wanted to evaluate the suitability of Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Theory in terms of reading this literature and providing a broad level framing to guide initial thinking about curriculum construction in response to these questions. This paper presents findings from our review of the online publically available literature and argues the value of Social Reproduction Theory to understanding current practice and guiding preliminary thinking around curriculum construction.
Keywords:Software development, Poverty, Disadvantage, Programming, Bourdieu,
Bali, Baudrillard, Coding, Indonesia
‘IDC estimates there were 21.03 million software developers in the world at the outset of 2017,’said Arnal Dayaratna, research director, Software Development at IDC.‘IDC estimates that 11.13 million are full-time developers, 5.77 million are part-time devel-opers, and 4.13 million are nonprofessional developers. The Asia/Pacific region accounts for 9.47 million of the world’s developers, while the EMEA and Americas regions represent 6.76 million and 4.80 million, respectively. Notably, China and India are responsible for 31.5% of the world’s total developer population’(Dayaratna2016).
Introduction
Employment websites reveal high demand for those with information communications technology (ICT) skills. On 7 November 2017, the software Development category at the seek.com (2017a), for example, sat comfortably within the top ten in terms of job vacan-cies in a list of approximately 50 categories. Athttps://www.seek.com.au/where software development is located in the ICT category, it ranked highest, offering over three times the number of jobs as second ranked category, construction. Software developers seem-ingly have ample employment opportunities. The strength of the field continues in the re-lationship between growth in the ICT and software development sector and regional and national economic growth; a relationship which mostly holds even for ‘developing’ coun-tries, with India perhaps as the best example (Arora and Gambardella2008;2005). But as positive as these indicators seem, we ask how individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds fare in this relationship, particularly those in‘third-world’or developing contexts? Here we refer to Bali specifically, which despite association with‘paradise’and a tourism indus-try attracting millions of tourists, remains very much a third-world contexts inscribed by socio-economic disadvantage (Sapsuwan 2014; The Bali Times 2012a; Surbakti 2012). Our experience of Bali is that life in a rural village or urban slum can be far removed from the world of software development, not only in terms of access to hardware and software, but also in terms of access to the field’s socio-cultural properties. A disposition towards employment in software development is not easily developed or maintained when there are more pressing short-term needs (Marinos2016; Kayser2013).
Yet some, whose lives are framed by poverty, succeed. There are, for example,‘ gradu-ates’from the Balinese-owned NGO we work with in Bali, the Slukat Learning Centre (SLC), who from poor rural village backgrounds have become what would have once been unimaginable. Students from SLC (Slukat Learning Center 2017) now study in universities around the world. Others have achieved similar outcomes within Indonesia; some enrolling in Masters Programs, while others have established careers beyond servicing the tourist industry. The exercise of agency leading to change and success, it seems, is possible. The Slukat Learning Center does not, however, offer a software de-velopment curriculum (also referred to hereafter as coding), a gap to which our project responds. We aim to develop and implement a coding curriculum for disadvan-taged rural Balinese youth who attend the Slukat Learning Center. Though in Bali there are indeed those who are already well positioned by and within the (‘ West-ern’) global capitalist economy as manifest at local and national levels (Jaya Guna
Although, within this context, Indonesia and indeed Bali are neither internationally significant nor top-tier software development centres, it is, we argue, almost inevitable that this sector in Indonesia (and in Bali) will continue to grow, such that those equipped with coding skills may be well positioned to take advantage of this. We understand this 'ínevitibility' from a theoretical perspective, and from the intensity of the current trajectory in the growth of the software development sector. Regarding the theoretical we look to the work of Baudrillard (1995) and see ínvitibility arising from a key dynamic of our times, which is abstraction. This dynamic, which arguably under-pins the economic and statistical evidence noted below, facilitates understanding why now the economic case for a programing curriculum for the disadvantaged should be so significant. Though much of Baudrillard’s work is concerned to account for our tele-visual world in terms of its functioning, dynamics, and impact upon knowledge, society and liberty, it is his claim that humanity has entered a fundamentally different para-digm that is of most relevance to this discussion. In this parapara-digm interaction with the world, self and others is increasingly mediated by digital televisual technologies includ-ing cybernetics, computers and the Internet (Baudrillard 2005, 2002, 1995, 1993). In elaborating this claim, Baudrillard provides an historic trajectory, mapping humanity’s arrival at its current position with regard to representation and engagement with the world. Our view is that software development is strongly representative of the ‘nature’ of the third order of simulacra (within this trajectory), which is one of intensifying ab-straction (Baudrillard2005).
Baudrillard maintains (1995) that there have been three orders of simulacra following the original condition of symbolic exchange, each grounded in a relationship between humanity, the image (as in re-presentation) and reality. The initial condition of sym-bolic exchange comprised a time when reality was taken to be fixed and God-ordained. Imagery functioned to reproduce the divine order of the real, with the image being ‘a good appearance’of the real, thus of a‘sacramental order’(p. 6). The question that real-ity might be otherwise, that it could be re-presented otherwise was a ‘non-issue’. Im-agery functioned to dissimulate or ‘to pretend not to have what one has’(p. 3). In the second order of simulacra, a shift takes place, from dissimulation to simulation. In con-trast to dissimulation, the move to simulate is to‘feign to have what one doesn’t have’ (p. 3). In the second order, roughly from the Renaissance to the mid-twentieth century, industrial technologies impact image production, including (analogue) photography leading to the mass production and re-production of copies. By contrast, the third order is ‘founded on information, the model, the cybernetic game—total operationally, hyper-reality, aim of total control’(p. 118). This is our time, our order; the one from which digitisation and software development arise.
through which we access real. Software developers, it seems, are at the epicentre of this intensifying dynamic. While this may seem overly fanciful if not overly theoretical, Edell whose business involves ‘helping companies succeed with machine learning’ puts this very simply: “Everything today is abstracted. Our grocery stores abstract growing food. Our roads and transportation methods abstract travel. Our devices abstract communi-cations” (2016). Baudrillard’s model not only provides a frame for understanding why there are so many software developer job vacancies, it arguably provides a frame for understanding the figures pertaining to revenue generated by the ICT field more broadly (including spending on hardware, software and services), and within this soft-ware development. Here we reference softsoft-ware development both as a‘field’in the gen-eral sense of an area of human endeavour, and also in terms Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Theory, in which the notion of field is central. While Bourdieu’s concep-tualisation of the field is treated in more detail below, the value which Bourdieu adds to understanding the software development field as a site to which the disadvantaged might gain access, is we argue, derived from Bourdieu’s recognition that a field is al-ways inhabited by individuals in a relationship with others who are framed by its rules of the game or doxa (Bourdieu and Wacquant1992, p. 101).
Though reports vary regarding revenues in this field, they are, however, constantly impressive. Statistica, for example, estimated that in 2017 global spending on enterprise software alone was expected to reach 351 billion U.S. dollars,‘while IT services, the sec-ond largest segment behind communications services, [was] set to reach 922 billion U.S. dollars’ (2017); others point to even higher numbers (ETCIO 2016). Elsewhere, Chatterjee (2014) claimed the size of the global IT services market to be US $850 bil-lion, globally, while as early as 2003, Askari and Chaterjee (2003) were predicting
‘worldwide markets for professional IT services [would] break the $1 trillion mark within the next two years, growing from an estimated $462 billion in 1999 to about $1.08 trillion by 2004, at an 18.6 per cent Compounded annual growth rate’1. With in-creasing consumer demand and business competition (Bartels and Giron 2017; Carlson
2006),‘companies that heretofore had little to do with technology are digitising their products and services with software to deliver more value to customers’(PwC Technol-ogy Institute2014; Arora et al.2013). Software development earnings can also be situ-ated among those of the creative economy, which as early as 2000 was generating
‘US$2.2 trillion worldwide’and growing at ‘an annual rate of 5 per cent’(Boccella and Salerno2016).
sector growth (Arora 2006). While IT service providers in Indonesia are dominated by
‘global players’, local firms are leveraging a capacity to work with local cultural orienta-tions (p. 2) such that as Sumirat et al. note with reference to the Indonesian start up Go Jek, the digitisation of Indonesian society has ‘strengthened the platform for [a] blossoming online creative economy’(Sumirat et al.2016).
For Indonesia the relevance of ICT and indeed software development to national eco-nomic development is recognised in the establishment of the Indonesian organisation for the creative economy—Badan Ekonomi Kreatif Indonesia (BEKRAF).2 President Joko Widodo has mandated that Indonesia will be a world leading power in the creative economy by 2030 (Sumirat et al.2016), while Hari Santosa Sungkari the BEFRAF dep-uty for Infrastructure expects that by 2019 there will have been a‘12 per cent surge in the creative economy’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product’(Singgih
2017). While BEKRAF comprises 16 sub-sectors, linked to ICT broadly and software development and services more specifically, it is interesting to note that one of these is software applications and game development (aplikasi dan pengamban mainan). BEK-RAF maintains that with:
“Increasing penetration, public use cannot be disconnected from the role of applications in this. People are already well versed in using various kinds of digital applications like maps for navigation, social media, news, business, music,
translators, games and so on. Some of these applications are designed to make daily life easier. Consequently, it is not surprising that there is a big potential in this sub-sector”(2017).3
While we return to this statement later, it is valuable in this acknowledgement of the context to also acknowledge the coding environment in Bali, which will be the more immediate environment framing the proposed coding curriculum. Though like Indonesia more generally, Bali is not considered to be in the top three tiers of software development, it remains nonetheless inscribed by a solid range of digital flows and is gaining a reputation as a tech start-up center (Loubier2014). AsNoviandaristates:
“Bali is a well-known paradise for tourists, treating them to its beautiful beaches, volcanoes, scenic rice fields, great food, and an abundance of adventurous island activities. What you may not know is that Bali has a fast growing startup scene. There are many entrepreneurs, initiatives, events, startups, and some tech talent based on the island”(2015).
Website Videos, BaliGatra and BaliWebPro to name a few. And in terms of connections with larger corporate software development, Mitrais exemplifies the capacity for Bali to be a hub within a much larger regional and international software development enter-prise (Earl 2016). Jakarta, of course, is home to more corporate entities and regional and global links, which is largely a product of its market size, being the base of oper-ation for a diverse range of industries requiring software. Nonetheless, a cursory review of job vacancies in Bali let alone Indonesia more broadly, also shows a healthy demand for developers. At the time of writing, Livit required the following in Bali: Technical Artist, C# Content Developer, Senior C# Software Engineer, DevOps Engineer, and a Python Developer (Livit2017).
Based upon the apparent strength of this context and the possibilities it seems to offer those with the approprate skills internationally and in Indonesia, our paper com-prises a first step towards development of a coding curriculum for disadvantaged youth in Bali, to be implemented at the SLC. In this paper, we review the publically available online literature reporting current practice in providing coding classes to the disadvan-taged. The literature is read through the lens of Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Theory. Though in developing our coding curriculum we hold to the liberal-humanist (indi-vidualist) tenant that all are equal and free to choose their own version of the good life (Tamatea2016), we understand this ideal to be qualified by the context in which indi-viduals and groups are located. Hence, as noted, we draw upon Bourdieu to identify the extent to which current practice, as reported in the publically available online literature, can be accounted for using his Social Reproduction Theory, as a precursor to using this theoretical framework to guide initial reflection upon constructing our coding curricu-lum. We argue with reference to the online literature around current practice, that So-cial Reproduction Theory adequately accounts for existing practice and as such it will be valuable to our project. But our review highlights that a coding curriculum provid-ing disadvantaged students with a capacity to positively change their life, which sup-ports agency, will need to equip students with a range of capitals (economic, social and cultural) as learning code alone is perhaps insufficient to achieve success. Though we acknoweldge the limitations of Bourdieu's thoery and the not insignificant challenges facing software development and ICT-related education in Indonesia more generally, we maintain nevertheless, that if Baudrillard’s thesis holds, then the need for software developers should only increase in Indonesia such that students in our coding class maybe well positioned to take advantage of this.
Methods
socio-economically disadvantaged (Zhang 2014; Connell 1994), non-formal education generally (Purwanti and Widiastuti2014), the use of ICT to support non-formal educa-tion more specifically (Malgorzata2017), ICT and development (Heeks et al.2017;2014), using ICT to teach the disadvantaged (Feldman et al. 2003; Deloatch 1977), and the challenges of teaching (and learning) programming (Fotaris et al. 2016), there has been little formal investigation of providing coding classes to the socio-economically disadvan-taged in non-formal education settings.
Nonetheless, Ruseva and Rissola’s investigation of the role of non-formal educa-tion in teaching coding (2016), which springboards from the broader movement by governments to introduce coding to all students in formal education, does raise questions about the extent to which this ‘new literacy’ will be accessible to the dis-advantaged. Though not a focused investigation of the relationship between disad-vantage and coding in non-formal education, Ruseva and Risola recommend that making coding more accessible to the disadvantaged may require both incentivisa-tion and the supply of more teachers. They also argue that although ‘welfare’ workers and volunteers are important to this goal, ICT professionals may value-add in this respect. But although this seems a solid proposition, we would suggest that possession of professional programming skills be combined with sound peda-gogical proficiency (Stewart 2015; Curry 2013).
In some respects, the intent of this paper is similar to that of the Erasmus+ report’s project, in that it aims to respond to a gap in the literature. We, like the Erasmus+ pro-ject, want to know ‘what is happening’. The Erasmus+ report expresses this intent as
‘diagnosis of non-formal education opportunities in the field of computer program-ming’ (p. 3). But whereas this report limited its scope to a number of EU member states, the scope of this paper is considerably more global. The report nonetheless iden-tifies the kinds of non-formal education opportunities available and what comprises
‘good’practice therein, foci both valuable to our project. With regard to the former, the report identified a number of levels of provision of coding education in the non-formal education ecosystem as follows: (1) online coding platforms, (2) coding resources plat-forms, (3) event-oriented coding and (4) coding communities. And with regard to the
‘winning features of the best practices for learning coding in a non-formal way’, these included (1) hands-on, (2) result-oriented, (3) added social value, (4) role models, (5) fun, (6) community-focused, (7) sensitive to languages, and (8) right balance between top-down and bottom-up management. Additionally, with respect to engaging girls, the report added to this list the following: girl-focused, no jargon and both female and male role models (pp. 23–24). While the Vecchia et al. European Commission sponsored report, Formal and Non-formal Educational Programmes on Digital Skills and Competences (2015), recognises a number of these expressions of best practice, it further highlights the importance of establishing links between the learning experi-ence and industry:
As a response to the gap in the formal literature, our review of the literature thus shifts focus to that found online to identify instances of practice in providing a coding curriculum to socio-economically disadvantaged youth in non-formal edu-cation settings. Though accessing online sources has limitations including the in-ability to more objectively state that matters represented online are in fact true, accessing these sources also has benefits including providing access to a wider range of perspectives which due to the ‘relative’ anonymity afforded online are more likely to be grounded in authentic disclosure (Tamatea 2005a, 2005b, 2008a,
2008b, 2010, 2011a). And in the specific context of Bali, Tamatea’s study of the Ajeg Bali movement following the Bali bombings demonstrated the value of acces-sing the public voice online to understanding contemporary socio-economic prac-tice and discourse (2011b).
Drawing upon online research methodology deployed by Tamatea, the literature introduced below comprise polemic and commentary from various online sources including webpages (corporate, personal and technology focused), social networking sites such as Quora, Facebook and Twitter, online magazines, blogs, and online news media sites (hereafter referred to as articles). These were generated from a dynamically bounded review, allowing for the search to respond to the information returned. Google searches in English commenced in July 2017 continuing intermittently to late July commencing with the terms ‘poverty + programming’, ‘disadvantage + programming’, ‘poverty + software developer/development’ and ‘non-formal educa-tion + coding/programming’. Searches were conducted until the 10th Google page was returned, where relevant results generally diminished. Approximately 65 relevant‘ ar-ticles’were returned from the initial search with occasional post-July searches identifying additional material, and some in Bahasa Indonesia. Articles were bookmarked and converted into PDF. These were archived using reference management software.
While the limitations of the ‘non-scientific’literature explored in this paper arguably include a general failure to report long-term results, (mostly) under-theorisation, insuf-ficient attention to the students’ voice, and with few exceptions little recognition of program limitations or instances of failure, they nonetheless arguably offer our projec-t—in the absence of more formal academic publications in this area—a rich research resource providing access to internationally dispersed instances of current practice. We state ‘mostly’ under-theorised as there is some discussion around programming and poverty, referencing social theory, which surprisingly draws on Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Theory; Byrne’s discussion of apps for low-income Americans exemplifies this (2014). We also draw upon Bourdieu to not only interrogate and understand these instances of practice, but to also—as a result of our analysis of such—inform initial thinking around the construction of our own coding curriculum. In conceptualising this project, we felt that we needed a social theory framework that would allow us to better understand the students’ current socio-economic position, how this might inform their relationship to the coding curriculum, and the kinds of ‘agentic’ learning experiences the curriculum might offer.
Results
One of the students commented that the reason they are not motivated to study programming is because they have not seen many programmers in Tanzania. They then fail to make a connection to the future of the course they are studying. This appears like a dark future, or venturing into the“unknown”destination. The future appears to be dark (Oroma et al.2012. p. 3822).
Bourdieu and existing practice
Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory is concerned to account for why individuals (as members of groups) are not only located within particular socio-economic positions, but act in ways seemly reproducing their position. Central to social reproduction, how-ever, is the habitus, which Bourdieu refers to as ‘the schemes of perception, thought, and action’(1989, p. 14). As a‘blueprint’, it comprises one’s sense of place, and mental structure through which individuals apprehend the social world. It is a result of the in-ternalisation of the structures of their world, and the kinds of capital associated with those (pp. 17–18). The habitus is tied to the‘perception and appreciation of practices, cognitive and evaluative structures which are acquired through the lasting experience of a social position’(p. 19). As Yang Yang explains, the habitus is our thoughts, our per-ceptions and dispositions (2014, p. 1525). The habitus is relational. It is experienced in relation to others who broadly share the same habitus (Bourdieu1989, p. 19) for whom it comprises ‘common sense’(p. 19). Hence, an upper class environment will likely en-gender a different habitus compared with a lower class environment; resulting in the possession of different dispositions, common sense and aspirations (Bourdieu 1996,
1989). Indeed, an online answer to the question: Why do not more poor people learn programming, explains this differential aspect of the habitus particularly well. The an-swer being: ‘the same reason a lot of rich/middle class people don’t learn to code, be-cause they don’t want to and/or have better things to do’ (Mahajan 2014). Though Bourdieu’s notion of habitus can be critiqued on a number of grounds as identified later in the discussion of limitations, it arguably provides a view of an individual’s dis-position and behaviour going beyond a narrow focus on the economic to include the socio-emotional impacts of such. And with this, the notion of habitus aligns with more critical understandings of poverty and disadvantage.
and even of sleep’; thus, poverty also restricts a person’s ability to make choices about their life (Nussbaum2011; Habibis and Walter2009; Sen1999). Bourdieu would refer-ence this outcome in terms dispossession, which is the inability to directly speak back to power arising from being dispossessed of capital and authorised discourses (Bour-dieu1991). What is more, the disadvantaged know they are disadvantaged being equally aware of the less than favourable perceptions of others (Kelly 2015). Notwithstanding the significance of other forms of capital in the experience of poverty and disad-vantage, our project does not dismiss the importance of economic resources or capital; those ‘immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institu-tionalised in the form of property rights’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 16). Indeed, we hope that our students’acquisition of programming skills will translate into increased ac-cess to economic resources.
Poverty in Bali is often directly related to a lack of economic capital resulting in levels of extreme poverty in some instances (The Bali Times2012). For example, the percent-age of children living on less than $2 per day in 20106in various (rural) regencies (as measured by the Indonesian basic needs approach) was particularly high: 71.52% for the Karangasem district and 64.3% for Bangli. More disconcerting is that over 7% of children in Karangasem were reported to be living on less than $1 per day (SMERU
2012, p. 267). Indeed such is the centrality of economic poverty to the experience of disadvantage that the majority of coding classes for the disadvantaged that are explored below, are established with the aim of enabling students to seek improved employment futures within the field of software development—a field in which they are currently under-represented (Coleman 2016). For example, in noting the disparity between the number of ‘computing jobs’ available in the USA and the number of graduates in computer science,refugeecodinghut.com, explains that:
One of the core pillars of our giving strategy is livelihoods, i.e., initiatives which empower individuals and communities to lift themselves out of poverty by creating sustainable income opportunities. Teaching computer science fits perfectly within that strategy, as it addresses one of the core needs of a community of over 50,000 refugees in the State of Utah (2015).
Nonetheless, the contexts framing disadvantaged students’participation in free cod-ing classes seem amenable to understandcod-ing through Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. The habitus, it will be recalled, comprises our thoughts, perceptions and dispositions (Yang Yang2014, p. 1525). It is experienced in relation to others who broadly share the same habitus (common sense) as a result of participation in similar fields (Bourdieu 1989, p. 19). A lack of previous access to a field can mean that an individual is not well-disposed to effectively participate within it when the opportunity arises. The online lit-erature also report not only disadvantaged economic conditions inscribed by a lack of access, but the social-emotional conditions and consequences in terms of limited and limiting student aspirations. Disadvantaged groups identified in the literature include Native Americans (Shannonn.d), girls (Black Girls Code2017), Latinos, African Ameri-cans, at risk youth (Chmelewski 2015), the rural poor (Mader2014), urban poor (CBS
Madagascar (Mulligan 2017), Ghana (Herz 2013; Walling 2005) and Pakistan (Qasim
2016). And though not all contexts providing coding classes are inscribed by the same conditions, many are characterised by socio-economic brokenness and its effects (Chmelewski2015). As Green explains with reference to poverty in Rwanda:
People who endure extreme financial scarcity experience brokenness in multiple ways. So we should not be surprised, really, to read how people living on less than $2 per day responded when asked,“What is poverty?”Poverty is…. An empty heart. Not knowing your abilities and strengths. Not being able to make progress. Isolation. No hope or belief in yourself. Knowing you can’t take care of your family. Broken relationships. Not knowing God. Not having basic things to eat. Not having money. A consequence of not sharing. A lack of good thoughts (2014).
A Memphis-based teacher providing coding classes to minorities and girls does so against a backdrop of decades of ‘children growing up in communities such as Binghamp-ton …surrounded by blight, crime and poverty’(Coleman2016). Elsewhere a program-mer teaching children from poor households reports ‘many of the kids I teach live in slums. People pee on the stairwells. Graffiti adorn the walls. Common areas are littered with uncollected rubbish, and it’s the people who are living there who are doing it’(Chew
2014). Other programs not so inscribed by crime or violence, nonetheless, report a lack of home infrastructure and access to economic resources needed to effectively engage in study of software development, including books (Walling2005), affordable stable internet connections (Walter2015; Mader2014), Wi-Fi (Doshi), a computer (Bhowmick2016), or tuition (Elliot2016). In some contexts, a lack of access is compounded by gender—males receiving preferential resourcing (Doshi 2016). Moreover, a lack of economic capital is often associated with a lack of time to invest in formal study, arising from family obliga-tions and multiple low-paying employment commitments (Doshi 2016; Byrne 2014). Doshi adds that parents in disadvantaged contexts may not necessarily support children taking up coding classes, especially girls tasked with housework (2016).
Significant in terms of the habitus, as a disposition, are the comments of Chew observing that with students:
Resigned to a life time of menial work or crime…it takes a lot of work to even get them to acknowledge that there are other options, and even greater effort to get them to work towards those options. These kids and many more like them will grow up inheriting these self-limiting mindsets, and will likely never grow out of it. A large majority will be the next generation of hardcore poor (2014).
assumption that success is the outcome of merit and not the student’s inherited capital with which the curriculum is often implicitly aligned.
The online literature reports that the experience of poverty and disadvantage in con-texts inhabited by students in coding classes for the disadvantaged is variously associ-ated with a soul crushing hopelessness, helplessness and apathy (Chew 2014). Students initially had little to no long-term goals (Chew 2014) reporting feeling like trash (Kelly
2015). Previous failure was a common experience leading to a lack of inspiration and confidence to even believe success was possible (Walter 2015; Chew 2014). Students were easily discouraged resulting in easy abandonment of any career possibility (Walter
2015). In some contexts, begging was the‘logical option’ providing an income solving the more immediate problems of hunger and malnourishment (Gamesbrainiac2014).
But whereas economic capital might be best understood as ‘money ‘in its simplest sense, social capital is perhaps best understood as a social network or group in which an individual is part. It is:
The aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition - or in other words, to membership in a group -which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively-owned capital, a“credential”which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word (Bourdieu1986, p. 21). Colloquially known as the‘old school tie’, it is a‘currency’recognised and exchanged among a social group, though ‘not a natural given, or even a social given’ (Bourdieu
1986, p. 22). Rather, it is the consequence of production, mutual recognition (of the exchanged capital) and reproduction; the product of:
Investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term, i.e., at transforming contingent relations, such as those of neighbourhood, the work-place, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once necessary and elective, implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friend-ship, etc.) or institutionally guaranteed (rights) (1986, p. 22).
Possession of the right kind of social capital‘profits’the holder in ways which can be material or symbolic (Siisiäinen 2000). Of significance in terms of poverty is that its absence negatively impacts the individual’s capacity to engage‘social customs, activities and relationships’ (Lister 2004, p. 22), such that poverty and disadvantage not only constrain investment in maintaining social capital, they limit opportunities to expand and acquire social capital. As noted above, Indian developers benefited from social networking with western counterparts (Heeks1999).
Of interest here are Byrne’s (2014) observations regarding social capital. Not only does Byrne specifically mention ‘social capital’, she explains that it is as significant to success as economic capital:
freelance writer probably wasn’t much higher than some of my interviewees, but I still had resources like educational credentials and social capital which many of them lacked. One of the reasons that graduation rates among low-income first generation college students hover at around 10% is that they don’t have the“college knowledge” taken for granted by their peers.
Though with exceptions, the online publically available literature shows that coding programs for the disadvantaged are not well theorised, they nonetheless provide what might be considered evidence of the significance of social capital, mostly through referen-cing the absence of role models in the lives of disadvantaged students. Students are reported to have never known a programmer (Ramsey 2016), or have never seen a programmer of their colour, ethnicity or background (Walter 2015). Nicks reports, for example, that ‘in 11 (US) states last year, not a single black student took the Computer Science Advanced Placement Exam for college credit’, suggesting that software develop-ment has become privileged knowledge for the groups that do enrol (2014). Denver’s reference to males acknowledges what is seen as the exclusionary ‘bro culture’ of computer science (Collins2017), in response to which there have emerged a number of free coding programs for girls and women specifically (Bradord 2015). Elsewhere, students report not having anyone with which to even discuss the possibilities in coding (Bhowmick 2016). This lack of social capital translates to the field of software develop-ment being experienced as alien, foreign and intimidating, eliciting an almost self-exclusionary response by the disadvantaged (CBS2015; Baker and White2013).
In the same way, the provision of coding classes for the disadvantaged seeks to ameli-orate a lack of economic capital through provision of economic resources; the online literature reports that they often seek to offset a lack of social capital, providing stu-dents with links to the software development field. Typically, this involves visiting soft-ware development sites (Baker and White 2013), work experience opportunities (Jackson2015), making connections with employers (Walter2015), using teachers from the students’ background (CBS 2015), and mentorships (Hulburt 2016; Heim 2012). Acknowledging the value of access to social capital, Williams, a coding teacher of low income students in San Francisco who grew up in‘the projects’, notes:
There is something important that happens when kids of color can see someone like themselves in leadership positions. Something powerful; which is why it is important that someone like Stevon Cook is CEO and Joe (CBS2015).
Stevon Cook, CEO, is also a man of ‘colour’from‘the projects’and like Williams he maintains it is ‘vital that these kids see talented people of color working in the tech industry’(CBS2015).
code as a career, but to open opportunities to‘those people who haven’t been program-ming since they were 10 years old’; to disadvantaged groups in whose career trajectory Wal-Mart, McDonalds and the minimum wage figure prominently. Here Loukides supports Anil Dash’s (2013) response to Obama detailing that the plan requires not only learning code but also the capital that‘works’in the field of software development, as the ‘people in power in the tech industry right now, [are] not inclined to let others in’. He advises that if you are one of those others, you must understand the language they are speaking (2013). This cautionary advice points to issues of access to the field and its social capital. It also points to the possession (or lack thereof ) of cultural capital, and thedoxaassociated with the field.
Cultural capital is that‘which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic cap-ital and may be institutionalised in the form of educational qualifications’ (Bourdieu
1986, p. 16). In the embodied form, it comprises‘long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 17). Embodiment references the assimilation of capital over time through investing in particular kinds of culture (p. 18). Although it can also be‘inherited’(Bourdieu1996, p. 12), cultural capital can be attained through education credentials associable with entrance into typically middle to upper middle class fields (Bourdieu and Passeron1990, p. 227).
For Bourdieu, the field is a location, domain or ‘arena’ wherein individuals are posi-tioned in a relationship with others according to the rules (of the game) informing its structure; capitals exist only in relation to a field (Bourideu and Wacquant 1992, p. 101). As noted earlier, these rules, internalised as the habitus, can also be understood as doxa or the socially shared meaning that informs how a context is read. Within a field‘doxa’(as a sum of capitals) comprise the:
Unquestioned shared beliefs which constitute fields and is an act of symbolic power in which the accumulation and distribution of capitals explains which beliefs and truths, which practices, distributions, hierarchies or sets of social relations are considered“natural”or appropriate (Hastings and Mattews2015, p. 549).
In the field of software development, entry has often been and often still is on the basis of a university-level qualification (cultural capital), a computer science degree or equivalent (Indeed.com,2017b). With the proliferation of online information, this entry mode is challenged through more opportunities to be self-taught (Jackson 2015), and the growth in organisations providing fast-track pathways into the industry, such as the ubiquitous coding bootcamp (Switchup 2017). Additionally, there are also the kinds of opportunities which this project aims to establish. Often the work of individuals, small groups, and sometimes corporate social responsibility are invariably staffed by volun-teers, exist outside of formal education, and are sometimes located in less than salubri-ous accommodation, like tin sheds (Skees2017) and laundromats (Kavilanz2016).
with doxa. As Bourdieu notes, relationships within a field are defined by power and struggles around the accumulation and distribution of capital therein (Bourdieu 1991, p. 242; 1986, p. 20), such that where capital is lacking, as a result of unfamiliarity with a field, the individual with limited power over the rules of the game may experience failure (Erel2010).
Discussion Cautious optimism
“It’s changing their lives. It’s an amazing story to tell, and Memphis is right in the center of it (Coleman2016)”.
With Loukides and Dash highlighting the constraints upon access and (successful) participation faced by the disadvantaged, it might be asked: Is it even possible for the disadvantaged to succeed in software development? Our view is that though difficult, it is possible. The online literature identfied above show that most coding programs share the goal of enabling students to seek improved employment opportunities and lifestyles. Referencing a program located in a US public housing development, Chmelewski (2015) for example, reports its goal is to‘break[ing] down the socio-economic barriers
…keeping so many kids away from technology and future life opportunities’. Similarly CodeON in South Carolina aims to give children ‘access to basic tech skills that will better prepare them for their future in college or in a job’(Kavilanz2016), while C4Q: Recruits New Yorkers from low- income, underserved communities, teaches them pro-gramming over an intensive 10-month course, and then helps them land jobs at com-panies like Pinterest and Kickstarter (Peters 2017). With these aims, coding programs for the disadvantaged not only aim to facilitate change, they are implicitly working on the premise that individuals have a capacity for agency, such that we maintain, here too Bourdieu holds out possibilities for understanding existing non-formal education based coding classes for the disadvantaged, and for framing our program in Bali, though as Yang Yang (2014) notes, his work around agency is not as convincing. Our view, how-ever, is that there is in Bourdieu’s work, space for the conceptualisation of agency, and thus there remains the possibility that education can support the exercise of agency and success. This (possibility of agencey) is then, our starting point for the discussion of the results of the online review of practice identified above.
reflexivity as a capacity mostly belonging to himself and other 'appropriately trained' sociologists (Yang Yang 2014; Mesny 2002). Akin to the Marxist ‘expert’s’capacity to see false consciousness where workers could not, this seems a self-indulgent reflexivity, exemplifying one of Baudrillard’s key arguments against the value of critical theorists:
“This is the trap of critical thinking that can only be exercised if it presupposes the na-ivete and stupidity of the masses”(1995, p.81).
Yang Yang’s review of Bourdieu and agency also explores possibilities for change in-herent in his notion of ‘hysteresis (effect) of habitus’, which Bourdieu defines as‘one of the foundations of the structural lag between opportunities and the dispositions to grasp them’(1977, p. 83). But here Bourdieu is unclear around the timing and duration of the needed ‘crisis’that causes the habitus to‘generate non-adaptive forms of behav-iour’(Yang Yang2014. p. 1530). Second, there is in Bourdieu a lack of clarity around what‘causes people to become resigned and what results in revolt’(p. 1531). As noted, poverty and disadvantage often result in resigning to circumstances and not pursuing longer-term opportunities (Marinos2016). It also remains unclear regarding the extent to which rational/reasoned/objective choice acts in circumstances of crisis, and here Yang Yang (2014, p. 1531) rightly questions Bourdieu’s seeming assertion that only those agents trained in academia may in fact do so. But what is rational? Is begging a rational choice? Yang Yang thus holds that while hysteresis ‘explains the uncertainty, confusion and frustration that arise when social agents experience a change in a given field …’it remains unclear how rational choice can overtake habitus and guard or seek individuals’positions in such a changing environment (p. 1531), such that the notion of hysteresis insufficiently explains change and agency.
we find a space for this reading (p. 133). Moreover, as Bourdieu and Wacquant assert, the habitus‘is durable, but not eternal!’(p. 133).
In response to these limitations, Yang Yang (2014) looks for agency in Bourdieu’s no-tion of ‘deviant trajectory’. This particular notion arguably holds promise for facilitating agency in a coding class for the disadvantaged; with students who may have never an-ticipated interaction with the field of software development. Bourdieu holds that a devi-ant trajectory is one wherein there is a‘misfire’in‘the homology between positions and the dispositions of their occupants’(1996, p. 183). Though conceptualised in the con-text of elite school students taking up the ‘pole opposite to the position to which they were (by virtual of their existing habitus) promised and which was promised to them’ (p. 184), the concept holds that the greater the (relational) distance between the two (fields)—the new and the old—the greater possibilities for agency (p. 184). Though as Bourdieu also notes, this can result in instability within the new field,‘failure’and a re-versal of direction (pp. 184–185). But in those occasions of success, Bourdieu seems, nonetheless, to suggest that this too is a product of the original habitus. Though again this is a conclusion associated with the privileged who hold to a habitus in which perse-verance and‘no right to failure’are valued expressions of capital,‘They are condemned [by their habitus] to excess, to extremes, to bold ostentation, which alone can justify their renunciation of temporal certainties’ (186). Still, Yang Yang sees possibilities in Bourdieu for education to support agency, as we also do. While Bourdieu was critical of education’s capacity to simply reproduce existing advantage and disadvantage (1996), he equally saw opportunities to intervene if education would be universalised. His later work extending reflexivity to the ‘people’, viewed universal public education as signifi-cant to this (Mesny2002, p. 65).
In contrast to the narrower interpretations of Bourdieu and agency, the publically available online literature shows that non-formal learn-to-code opportunities can sup-port student agency and produce successful outcomes. The article,‘Meet the Non-Typ-ical Programmer Who Beat Poverty and Shattered Stereotypes, for exampple, reports how a girl familiar with poverty, now has a work portfolio on LinkedIn and has‘ devel-oped a strong professional network of friends and colleagues all over the world’ (King) - all indicative of acquiring“capital”. Skees (2017) reports on a Bangladeshi girl, Nila, born into poverty that ‘might have followed in footsteps of her parents for a life-time of arduous manual labour and chronic hunger’, but with the help of free education including coding, has the confidence to dream of well-paying creative work: ‘By the time I finish schooling … my mother will be old. So I will design a robot to do her housework for her, and I will take care of her’. It is also reported that Lakota Sioux In-dian students in free coding classes on the Pine River Reservation, who ‘never knew they were good at anything, not only“love”the learning, but“the impact [on] younger kids has been really obvious” (Shannon n.d). This article reports that one of the stu-dents is ‘now a sophomore in high school, and one of the best students’. More-over: She won the best animation prize … despite never having heard of computer animation. It inspired her to become an animator and she’s now looking for college programs in animation (Shannon n.d).
challenge’ (Burt 2016). While we could highlight more instances of success such as EdTech in Pakistan (Qasim2016), the success of Stevon and Joe from MissionBit sug-gests first, Bourdieu is right in terms of the impact the habitus can have upon children’s life chances, and second, that change and agency are possible. Stevon notes that not only was his‘world completely changed when…exposed to some great opportunities,’ but this exposure would generate his mission some 12 years later,‘to go into communi-ties where they would never even consider a computer science course and spark some-thing in the minds of low-income students’(CBS2015).
However, with the possibility that agency can be generated through the unfamiliarity of a new field, as the exemplars of online practice identified above seem to be also showing, Yang Yang's recommendation of a non-traditional approach grounded in ex-plicit pedagogy seems to provide a 'workable' option for curriculum construction in the proposed coding program. That is, a pedagogic approach, which is planned, strategic, scholastic, and experimental, or rather, practice-based in which an individual is ‘fully aware of the available resources and can be reflexive all the way through until a second-ary habitus is constructed’ (2014, p. 1533). But to this we would add that reflexivity must be grounded in engaging how relations of power inform the context, student and curriculum relationship (Tristan 2013), not necessarily in an adversarial sense, but through appropriation– and the acquisition of capitals. This when considered in rela-tion to the reading of practice above, suggests that our curriculum will need to not only provide access to code and capital resources such as hardware, software and the Inter-net, but also to opportunities to identify access and engage the social and cultural cap-ital of software development. We are for example, already talking to business in Bali to establish linkage opportunities. Additionally, the proposed curriculum should ideally also be taught (or co-taught) by teachers who are ‘local’who have a similar ethnic if not class background, who might provide valuable role models. The curriculum might align with existing Indonesian or international qualifications pathways and importantly provide access to the doxa of the software development industry in Indonesia and beyond. We maintain that not only are all of these strategies possible, they would largely replicate strategy underpinning existing curriculum areas at the Slukat Learning Centre. But the current SLC curriculum not only delivers subject specific disciplinary knowledge, it also provides opportunities for students to access the kinds of social and cultural capital that they otherwise have little to no access to. Our coding curriculum aims to fit into this current approach, which has proven successful in terms of student vocational outcomes. This existing SLC curriculum is also supported by a strong focus on local wisdom, framed by the Balinese notion of Tri Hita Karana,7comprising:
1. Harmony Among people (Pawongan). This is implemented through developing student character through a leadership program, English and basic computer classes, and working to improve student confidence through enabling interaction with international volunteers.
3. Harmony with God (Parhyangan). Students engage in local wisdom programs, yoga, andTirta Yatraactivities such as excursions to temples, and learning how to make offerings (sajen).
Our coding curriculum will also need to be framed by the principles ofTri Hita Kar-ana. With this, we see opportunities to work with the students and the community to develop applications and software that are culturally relevant, responsive and culture sustaining. And while this has not been a discussion about specific software develop-ment technologies, curriculum content or pedagogy, we acknowledge that the online literature, like the formal literature, emphasises learning through fun activities such as game development (Kayser 2013; Patane 2015) and project and group work (Walter
2015, Feldman et al.2003). It equally advocates providing as much learning material as possible (apps, programmes, videos, books, slides) on redistributable USBs for use when the internet is not at hand, allowing for offline coding (Giantsparklerobot 2016). At this stage, however, we envision being able to offer students access to C# and the .Net Framework, web development technologies (such as CSS, HTML and JavaScript), PHP, Android development (using Xamarin) and possibly some Unity work.
Limitations
But despite our sense of optimism emerging from the contextual case and the success stories revealed in the literature, our project is not unaware of key challenges and 'fun-damental' limitations that have a potential to impact its successful implementation. These include not only the critique of Bourdieu, but also those facing the Indonesian software development sector as a whole. With regard to the former, we acknowledge that Bourdieu is criticised for being imprecise regarding what comprises the capitals; a consequence of which has been inconsistent research findings in projects using Social Reproduction Theory (Sullivan2002146). Our project, does not however, aim to gener-ate a list of students’capitals wherein‘evidence’might be identified to demonstrate the veracity of Bourdieu’s theorising. Rather, we reference Bourdieu to guide building a cur-riculum that avoids the uncritical liberal-individualist assumption that because all are 'theoretically' or in principle equal, that all are equally positioned (in practice) to achieve success. The results of the online literature reviewed above clearly show this is not the case (Collins2017; Mader2014). Instead we draw upon Bourdieu to understand where students may have come from, what their understanding of the field of software development might be, and what might be needed to help them achieve success in this field. Importantly, we also draw upon Bourdieu to understand the possibilities for agency that might be engaged by the disadvantaged in entering a field with which they may have had little to no previous contact. Moreover, while some see in Bourdieu a lack of clarity around the treatment of agency as we also do, like others (Yang Yang
2014; Nash1990) we also find support in his work that validates offering students’ ac-cess to what may be an alien and possibly intimidating field. Hence, while we hold to the ideals of liberal-humanism, we acknowledge their limits - in practice - such that our view is fundamentally and critically sociological.
we also note that Bourdieu did not preclude attempting to understand why, for example, individuals within classes who with interrupted trajectories, acted in ways contrary to
‘natural’class expectations (1996, pp. 183–187).
Notwithstanding the limitations of Bourdieu's theoretical tools, there are those associated with the Indonesian software development sector and ICT Education, which are neither insignificant nor unacknowledged by the Indonesian government. BEKRAF adds:
On the other hand, this sub-sector still faces various challenges, among them human capital/resources both in number and quality, minimal industry investment, and insufficient protection recognising the importance of domestic developers. This situation makes this sub-sectors’environment insufficiently developed (2017).
While many of the challenges in Indonesia are those faced by other developing countries growing a software development sector (BMZ2011; Bamiro2007), among which can be relatively low wages in some instances (Fendy2016; Andre2015),8the Indonesian govern-ment is not unaware of such, having committed to better supporting software development.
…BEKRAF can undertake a number of actions. It can, initiate the emergence of incubators for applications and game development. Place the right elements for application and game development in education and protect local developers and support them in promoting their field (BEKRAF2017).
While BEKRAF policy is clearly positive, overall Indonesian policy and practice around education as an institution to support not only ICT creativity but also software development, is mixed. While policy voices laud ICT and software development (Intan
2016), ICT has much to the chagrin of those in the industry been removed as a stand-alone curriculum area in schools (Susanti2016; Vota2014). Moreover, we acknowledge President Widodo’s own caution around the potentially negative impact of digital tech-nologies upon youth:
The effect of information and communication using our smartphones is that they can erode the value of character among our children (sic) (Marwati2017).
We also acknowledge that both household and national infrastructure is often inad-equate to support the kinds of learning experiences that could be associated with a stand-alone curriculum. And while policy seeks improvement in school and higher education outcomes (Chang et al. 2014; Smith2017), questions remain about the quality of gradu-ates, including those from Indonesian programming courses (The Australian2012; Global Business Guide Indonesia 2016). Indicative of this concern, Abud explains that in Indonesia ‘most [software development] companies have to invest six months or so in training the talent they need, making scaling up a challenge’(Abud2012, p. 11).
Others highlight that even Google’s forays into poverty alleviation did not end well (Strom and Helft 2011). Moreover, we are aware of the argument that not all can program (Baduser 2014; Lee 2014). Together, these dynamics remain formidable challenges. Indeed, changing the lives of the poor is itself a long term process and some might argue that a globalisaing neo-liberal economic structure makes this all the more difficult (Tamatea 2010).
Conclusion
Our project, however, is not aiming to challenge the global economic order, as much as to equip disadvantaged rural Balinese youth with coding skills that may better support them to participate in this order. Ours is a micro-level focused project, aware of broader macro-level socio-economic structuring, but which has as its domain of poten-tial change, the local and in particular the individual – as a member of a socio-economic group. Our aim is to offer coding lessons as part of a larger non-formal education curriculum at the Slukat Learning Center in Bali with the hope of facilitating enhanced agency among the disadvantaged. With this, we acknowledge the capacity of education to facilitate emancipation, be it formal or non-formal, and we acknowledge the role of education in supporting the supply of developers to a developing software industry (Arora and Gambardella 2008). We further acknowledge the international movement of state governments to provide all students with access to coding in formal education (Bocconi et al. 2016), and like Ruseva and Rissola (2016) hold that disadvan-taged students should equally have access to this resource. We are not unaware, how-ever, of a view that capital (industry backed by the state), seeking to reduce developer wages, is behind the coding for all in schools movement (Bresnihan et al.2015).
Still, we argue that coding should be available to all not because all can or will code. Rather, because in an era inscribed by intensifying abstraction (Baudrillard 1995), all should be given the opportunity to code. We understand that established software producing nations dominate globally, and this will likely hold for some time, such that developing nations will continue to consume off the shelf products, though perhaps in-creasingly in the form as Software as a Service (SaaS) (Bartels and Giron2017). Yet in this space local developers are emerging to produce products meeting local cultural and language requirements (Bartels and Giron 2017). The global corporate sector is not unaware of the localisation need (Bartels and Giron 2017) and in Indonesia the GoJekstart-up is an example of this. The local (national) creative economy as signalled by BEKRAF equally provides opportunities for localised software development (Boccella and Salerno2016).
corporations, and even opportunities to work in international settings. SLC stu-dents equipped with ‘character’ derived from local wisdom, a command of English, capital from interaction with both Eastern and Western tourists, and coding skills, may be well placed to meet this shortage or perhaps even win scholarships for en-rolment in tertiary level computer science courses, nationally and internationally. While success can undoubtedly be measured otherwise, in a context where many live on a few dollars a day, we see securing sustainable economic capital as a stra-tegic priority and indicator of success.
Achieving this will, however, not be easy, not the least because of the challenges detailed above. But more than this, we know that possession of a degree in Bali is certainly no guarantee of middle class employment. Experience tells us that many young people hold degrees, but remain in labouring positions or those servicing the tourist industry at lower levels. Moreover, in Indonesia, both access to certain kinds of employment and indeed promotion can require the employee to first pay the employer. Furthermore, while we acknowledge that although Bali has become a developer ‘hot spot’, these claims need to be interrogated in terms of the national and ethnic compos-ition of the developer cohort. While globally mobile digital workers may be able to afford the time and cost of moving from their metropolitan centres to ‘paradise’, to co-work and netco-work with those similarly well-placed, we are not convinced that the Balinese themselves are equally represented in such spaces, beyond predominantly ser-vicing such. But again, our project’s aim is not to challenge or subvert such flows. In-stead it is to provide disadvantaged Balinese youth with more agency so as to be able to access these flows.
Finally, our project aims to provide opportunity to those who otherwise may not have had access to the field of software development, and this paper comprises a first step to-wards that goal. Our review of the publically available literature around current practice in the provision of non-formal education coding classes to the disadvantaged, not only reveals what is considered to be the obstacles to success, but also what is needed to achieve success in the software development field –at least at entry level. While most programs identified in the online literature view success in terms of equipping students with employment related skills, as we do, the literature also shows that success requires more than acquisition of code skills. With this, we have found Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Theory particularly amenable for reading and understanding current prac-tice and thus for framing initial thinking about our own coding curriculum. Bourdieu’s framework proposes that‘success’or being favourably positioned socio-economically is a consequence of the possession of a range of capitals, and our reading of the literature shows this to hold both in terms of why the disadvantaged are underrepresented in soft-ware development, and in terms of what is needed to redress this through the provision of non-formal education coding opportunities.
Endnotes
1
Compound Annual Growth Rate.
2
Replacing the former Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy.
3
Translated fromBahasa Indonesia.
4
5
Discussion below acknowledges President Widodo’s concern about the negative impacts of digital technologies (Marwati,2017).
6
Most recent data.
7
Three causes of well-being or three reasons for prosperity that include the balance between God, humanity and nature (Parhyangan, Pawongan, Palemahan).
8
To the contrary, the 2016 Kelly Indonesia Salary Guide reports that a software engineer with 5–8 years’experience will earn between 5 and 8 million Rupiah a month (AUD $500–800).
Author’s contributions
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Author’s information
Though from a sociology-based background, Laurence maintains an interest in programming and software develop-ment. He is particularly interested in C# and the. NET framework more broadly. His current research emerges from this cross-disciplinary intersection.
Ayu is experienced in the Indonesian corporate banking sector, and current PhD candidate in the School of Education at Charles Darwin University. Ayu is a founder of the Slukat Learning Center in Bali; a non-formal education center for disadvantaged youth in the Keramas village.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Received: 28 November 2017 Accepted: 19 January 2018
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